Weekly roundup

Well I've had a busy old week. I decided to take some time off from my freelance work and so had this week as a "holiday."

My friend Ruth came to visit at the beginning of the week for a couple of days which was lovely. We just pottered about Biggleswade and Hitchin was nice and relaxing. I also made chilli which I always enjoy.

In the middle of the week I visited my parents and did a bit of shopping with my Mum and popped out for a meal.

Then on Friday my friend Selina came to visit with her two little boys Jack and Lucas. They have grown so quickly it is really quite astonishing. It was lovely to see Selina as it's been far to long. The last time we visited Selina was almost exactly 2 years ago!

Yesterday was a pretty lazy one so today we went to Cambridge for a bit of an explore. I only really know the river and colleges bit of Cambridge so we walked around that area to where the main shops are. We had a good wander and Jase got me two DVD's Kiki's Delivery Service and the Cat Returns both Studio Ghibli Japanese animated films.

We passed a Chinese supermarket on the way back and picked up some Gunpowder tea. This caused a lot of tweets on Twitter so tomorrow I shall blog about the gun powder tea with some photos of it and comparison to other teas I have!

Self employment and cake

Lets deal with the cake first shall we? My twitter friends will know that I was making cakes last weekend for my brother's birthday party. Yes he was 32 and he wanted a proper birthday party buffet like you have when your a child! I have to say it was always my favourite food. Birthdays were great with cocktail sausages, sausage roles quiche etc. My Granny also used to make us a fantastic buffet lunch when ever we went to visit with pork pies, scotch eggs, quiche, the best salad loads of fresh water cress, big ripe tomatoes and always loads of cakes of course. I remember one year for my brother's birthday my Mum made a dinosaur cake resplendent with green butter icing.

So for my brother's birthday I made fudge muffins decorated in pink icing and smarties pictured below. The gorgeous cheese cake above was made by the English Cheesecake Co who I can heartily recommend! The biscuit base was just perfect! My brother's had little Crunchy style chocolate and honeycomb pieces in it and on top of it. Personally I like the look of the blackberry cheesecake the English Cheese Cake Co do!

I also thought it was about time I blogged about being self employed. It's 3 month today since I left my permanent job at the NMC. Its funny the 3 months have flown by but it also seems like a life time ago that I was having my leaving drinks in Regents Street.

I certainly didn't make things easy for myself moving house 2 days later and then going through the 6 weeks of navigation through the selling a flat process.

Work wise I have been lucky. I only ever intended to work part time and baring that in mind I have been very fortunate with the contracts i have won. I have only so far applied for one thing that I didn't get and that was a public appointment rather than a contract as such.

I've carried out two training sessions which both went well, did some policy and consultation work for my old employer and as you know, from me plugging it on my blog, I'm organising and co presenting a seminar on disability and the equality act in September. There are a couple of other things in the pipe line too.

So my work so far has been varied and really interesting. I still have moments of panic when I think I should apply for a "proper job" so I have more security. I still haven't got used to the erratic nature of being paid as a freelancer. Because I didn't plan to do this as such I didn't have a nice cushion of savings or anything like that to see me through the barren periods. My long suffering boyfriend Jason has been wonderful in helping me. I have had to make changes though. Gone for now are my arbitrary beauty treatments. I'm doing them myself now at home. (apart from pedicures which due to my lack of eyesight I really cant manage so I still get my pedicure as a little slice of luxury!)

The thing that I am finding most difficult is the lack of routine. There is no way that I want to go back to commuting every day! Those of you who do that hard slog on public transport or in your cars will not have a jot of sympathy for me lounging about in my pjs at 11AM. But seriously I know that our bodies like routines even if my mind rebells against it I do need a routine and I haven't as yet found one.

I'm sleeping late, eating late and generally not keeping to any kind of routine. Some times I work in the morning's. sometimes afternoons and sometimes all day or not at all, if I don't need to. I guess I should really stop worrying about it as long as I'm getting the work done and I'm happy. I just wondered how others who work from home or are self employed deal with it? I'd love to know.

So on the whole I think doing freelance work is great! I'd also like to say thank you to everyone who has been so supportive with my decision and with my work :-)

Grey Dagger Moth caterpillar

I went out for the first time today after spraining my ankle. I'm glad to say that its not too bad so it won't stop me getting about but no more charging about the countryside for a few days at least!

So I've been catching up on some weeding in the garden. I came across the caterpillar pictured above on one of my roses. Its a spectacular looking caterpillar but apparently the moth it turns into isn't that exciting a bit grey and tatty looking! I know how the moth feels :-)

My lady bird army!

I noticed yesterday morning that literally over night my chilli plant had become infested with little white green fly grubs! Yuck, the little critters were everywhere! Because the weather has been so bad over the last couple of weeks I hadn't been able to put the chilli plant out in the garden so I guess this is how it happened. Yesterday was surprisingly glorious though, so out went the chilli plant. I put it near another plant which has been colonised by lady birds.

I hoped that maybe a lady bird or two might jump on to the chilli plant and feast on the nasty little green fly larvae. Well the lady birds certainly found there way to the plant as did the little wasp things that love green fly. My own wee beastie army eating all the evil larvae!

For good measure before bringing it in at night I blasted the plant with a fine spray of water hoping that would knock off any left.

This morning I thought I'd inspect the plant back in its sunny position in our hall. I found one little white grub but before I could rub it off the leaf I noticed a lady bird heading for it! After closer inspection there are at least two lady birds still on the plant chomping away at any grubs they find!
I tried to get a couple of pics of them which you can see here.

I am very grateful to my lady bird army for keeping the green fly at bay. Nature truly is wondrous!

Natalie the explorer!

Today the weather was so gorgeous, I decided to go for a walk and explore a bit of Biggleswade I'd not been to. I decided to walk north of the town and up a farm track towards the RSPB lodge south of Sandy. As I walked through the northern most housing estate in the town I came across this huge pom pom of a hanging basket! (pictured below.)

I found the farm track with out any difficulties, the picture below shows the farm track I was following you can see what a beautiful day it was.

The view around me as of just farm land and hedgerows. It was so peaceful with only the sound of the wind in the wheat, the crickets chirruping and the odd burst of bird song. I was really enjoying my exploring! I walked 2 miles in a little over 30 minutes so I was making brisk progress along the track. (I had my trusty pedometer with me)

Then just as I approached the end of the track I fell and twisted my ankle in a pot hole. I got up dusted myself down and carried on like a trooper. Not long after this, the only car I'd seen passed me very slowly. I noticed the driver was studying me closely, he wound down the window and asked me if I was alright. I said yes and carried on, as did the car in the opposite direction. I then looked down and saw that there were about 5 little rivers of blood streaking down my shin! Luckily I had some antiseptic wipes with me so I could clean the cuts on my knee, but it stung an awful lot! I began to walk slowly back but I realised that my ankle was only getting worse so I phoned for a cab. I had to wait for it by these lonely farm buildings. The iron doors were rattling in the wind. It felt very lonely and a bit spooky waiting there for the taxi to arrive!

I got home safely and I'm glad I did because my knee is quite sore and stiff now and my ankle pretty painful! But a nice cup of tea, some painkillers and a low calorie pizza with salad are cheering me up no end!